New Bridge On 1129 At Sob Kok, Chiang Saen, Now Open

[ianyonok]

Pootling around on the 1952 BSA M33 today, saw that the rebuilt bridge over the Kok river at Sop Kok, SE of Chiang Saen on the 1129, is now open. There has been a detour here for a couple of years, around past Wat Prathat PaNgao and left onto the new 1063 superhighway. This would take you east over the "older" new bridge and up to the new traffic lights intersection and back on to the 1129 to turn right towards Chiang Khong. So, the old 2 lane bridge has been replaced by a bridge twice as big, 2 lanes each way. At present only 1 lane each direction is usable and it looks like a few months before it will be finished completely. Seems like a good business to be in at present, building road bridges.....

 

[Oddvar]

What a bike..

 

[ianyonok]

Hahaha.... it's the shopping bike, hence the wicker basket on the back....... with a max speed of 45mph it's not really a sports tourer.....

 

[David Learmonth]

At last. Good news. I'm heading for ChiangKhong Friday & Saturday

 

[DavidFL]

Thanks for the update.
It did seem to take them an exceptionally long time to get the job done, don't you think?

 

[ianyonok]

It seems like it, but then bridges do take a long time to build. The old 2-lane span was quite long and slightly arched. It has been replaced by 2 x 2 lane bridges which are flat across. That probably means more supporting columns compared to the old bridge.
The other new bridge over the Kok (on the new superhighway) and the Chiang Khong bridge over the Khong, also took quite a long time. The difference may have been that we didn't need to use those bridges until complete, but this was a bridge re-building project, that we were used to suing, so the time taken was more noticeable.